


One More Kiss, Dear

by alphatoothless



Category: Gravity Falls, Reverse Falls - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reverse Falls, Angst, Blade Runner!AU, Forbidden Love, Humans, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Other, Replicants, Survival, WIP, Willdip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 05:54:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13734537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphatoothless/pseuds/alphatoothless
Summary: Replicants; the always-evolving artificial creations of a corporation interested in continuing biological life. Humans; the creators and the prosecutors of replicants - both alive and deceased. Blade Runners; the officers who carry out the execution of rogue and autonomous replicants.Love; the driving factor that led two replicants to go rogue in search of a meaning for the inexplicable development of feelings and the unexpected effect on a single Blade Runner to question everything he once knew about biological existence.





	1. Wait For Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! As you can probably see, I'm a bit of a fan of the Blade Runner movies. I had dabbled with this idea before, but finally decided to put a story together for it. 
> 
> Please drop a comment or send a message my way on Tumblr with your thoughts, and thank you all for your patience with me in the last couple of months! 
> 
> Enjoy!

_"Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?"_

\--

_Plop, plop, plop._

He tugs the collar of his jacket further up to cover some of his face. The leather gloves squeak against his fingers, glistening in the water that coats the smooth fabric. Each breath that escapes him wheezes through the mask around his mouth, forcing pressurized air right back into his system when he inhales once more.

_Plop, plop, plop._

A hologram skips in front of him and japanese-esque writing follows it. Coca-Cola flashes around the skimpily dressed female as she presents a bottle of coke to those around her. Some glare at the hologram, others gawk at it hungrily, but most continue walking in a pained daze.

He stops and looks to the sky. He doesn't know why, but he does. He realizes there's a strangely empty feeling hollowing out his gut, but he decides not to think about it. He closed his eyes against the rain droplets.

For a brief moment, a memory reminds him that he isn't who he pretends to be.

A glimpse of sun with a whirling of green and yellow. The soft giggle of a voice he can't remember. The feeling of warmth on his skin.

He opens his eyes to the duskiness of the grimy city. The neon flashes of advertisements over puddles of grime and soiled patrons. Motor oil and smoke fill the air. People shove past others, nearly being hit by three-wheeled cars that remain static and antique compared to the hovering police vehicles above them.

One whirls past him and he immediately looks to the ground before scuffling forward.

_Plop, plop, plop._

"Fucking replicants."

His ears perk at the sound of a sneering nasally voice in the distance. He glances up at a man with an old, worn trench coat. His air mask glows a neon red around the cheeks of the mask, intimidating those who stand too close.

Dark eyes meet his own briefly before he quickly turns away and scurries through the crowd.

He grits his teeth before quickly ducking into a shop as discretely as he can, all-too aware of the sounds of pounding footsteps that suddenly rush past his hiding place.

_**PLOP, PLOP, PLOP!** _

His heart is pounding hard, thumping against his chest as he holds his breath. He feels an overwhelming urge to cry, but he doesn't.

He can't. Not now.

When he's sure the coast is clear, he pulls his gas mask tighter around his face and forces his way into a large crowd. He walks against the stream before he's pushing himself into a dark alleyway.

He can hear the sizzling of food. He can see the shadows of people curled against walls, their masks pulled off as they suck on cigarettes in the dark. He pulls out goggles from his coat pocket and tugs them over his eyes. No one gives him a second look as he glances around once before nodding at a guard. The larger man, decked out in heavy armor and a mask resembling an apocalyptic nightmare, just nods once back at him.

_Thump, thump, thump_

The feeling of booming music thud against his feet as the views of almost-naked strippers fill his sight. He scans the crowd before pushing past gaping individuals. He can feel the tug of hands on his arms in heartily attempts to capture his attention as he continues to walk swiftly through the compacted space.

When he reaches the door, he pushes through, quickly slamming it shut behind him before pulling his mask off. He sucks in a single breath, knowing relief is far from where he's at.

Relief is in the form of a man he's desperate to find.

He pulls the goggles down around his neck as he marches forward, scaling grimy staircases until he reaches the fourth floor. His jacket feels heavy and sticks to him, but he doesn't dare remove it. Not yet. When he reaches the fourth floor entrance, he pulls the mask around his face, inhaling the cool air of tanked oxygen before opening it. People are hanging by the walls, surrounded by ragged pillows and blankets.

He's grateful no one looks at him.

He removes one of his gloves and rests it against a scanner, watching it glow with recognition before unlocking. He glances back, relaxing only slightly when no one pays attention to him, before he slips inside and closes it quietly behind him.

Fluorescent lights moan before slowly flickering on, reflecting off the cold metal floor. A grey couch rests in a corner, a single pillow and blanket neatly folded on one side. The kitchen is small, a tiny corner with a single stove and a small fridge next to it. There's a single table in the center of the room, and the large, open window revealing the dark cityscape glared back at him as he slips a hand inside his jacket. Dirty fingers pinch a hidden zipper before tugging it down to retrieve a single microchip inside.

He nearly wants to faint with the very feeling of it in his hand.

He makes quick work of the living space and his outer clothes before shutting the curtains of the room. He removes his mask and goggles and then gets to ensuring the door is completely locked down, checking the room for any and all bugs, before he slips the chip inside an aged micro-reader.

Tears well up when a familiar face flashes on the screen.

 _"Hello."_ His heart aches upon hearing the soft voice.

Dirty fingers brush against the screen longingly. Air feels impossible to move through his lungs as his jaw clenched tight to prevent his emotions from suddenly setting themselves loose.

"If you are watching this, then you are either the person it is meant to be for or things are already far too late." The man on the screen looks tired. Wavy brown hair is combed back almost messily and bright cyan seem dull and lifeless.

"Darling, if this is you - I am okay." The man on the screen assures softly.

He holds back a choked sob. Dirty fingers caress the screen as hot tears finally run down his cheeks.

"Unfortunately, this safety may not hold for much longer." Pursed lips. "They are persistent. The Blackout did not erase all of our tracks like we'd hoped for."

An icy chill runs down his spine as the words echo in his ears before silent anger jabs his throat. Wasn't that the point of this? Hadn't that been the point of this entire plan?

Had it all been for naught?

"But now, it's time, honey." Tired eyes stare at him with a silent longing and exhausted determination. "We can't wait anymore."

He nods to the screen.

"You know what to do - what we've waited to do for so long."

He has a jolt of energy then, despite the ache in his body. He wants to run now, to grab everything he can and make his way out. Instead, he continues to watch through teary eyes.

The man on the screen has a softer expression then, a small smile ghosting over lightly-chapped lips.

"I miss you."

"I miss you, too." He replies meekly through a groggy, unused voice. He swallows down a cough that threatens to escape past a clenched throat.

"Soon."

He nods before the words "I love you" are mouthed before the screen shuts off. He sits there for a moment, staring at an empty screen before he pulls the microchip out. He breaks it in half easily between his forefingers and thumbs, before cracking it once more and again for safe measure. When he's satisfied with that, he grabs his mask, fitting it around his face before fitting his goggles around his eyes. This time, he grabs a different coat with a heavy hood after wrapping his forehead in a scarf.

He leaves his apartment behind, letting it flicker into darkness for a final time before stepping into the littered hallway.

The sudden, overwhelming determination nearly makes him nauseous. His heart pounds to the beat of rain drops hitting the dirty concrete.

_Plop, plop, plop._


	2. Suspicious Minds

_"Replicants are like any other machine, they're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem."_

\--

"What do you mean?"

"When the Blackout occurred, we lost everything." A plumper man replies in blatant annoyance. His chubby cheeks make him seem even angrier as he pulls out his cigarette and glares back. "Don't you get it? They're probably dead by now. No skinjob could have possibly survived those riots. They were hunted like dogs."

"Two of them survived." The other man bites back angrily.

"They were never reported in the system. Wanna know why?"

"Why?" Is asked through grit teeth.

"Because they were probably kidnapped and killed in the underbelly of LA." The plumper man leans back in his chair. It groans under the pressure. "And if they did die, we wouldn't have records of it. The Blackout deleted every single one of our files. But even if they did survive, by some miracle of God himself-"

The other man watches with narrowed eyes as the cigarette is crushed into a overflowing ashtray. The office is filled with smoke, illuminated against the neon signs that glow through the blinds of the office.

"There's no way they'd make it this long with all the hunters around. Too many people desperate for a make-believe 'surviving skinjob' on the streets to lead them on with hope to save their own miserable lives."

"I'm told they're alive and they're communicating."

"And which ones are they, then?" Snide amusement.

The other man slams files onto the littered desk. The plump man glared at him before leaning forward, squinting at opened picture files. Black-and-white photos of two replicant men stare back at him. One of them has wavy hair and a scowl, the other has tired eyes and a frown. It's clear the sight of them has the plump man on edge for a brief moment before he turns his disdain back toward the other man.

"These two are dead. There's absolutely no way they could have survived after the word got out of their little affair."

"They're not dead. Their bodies were never found. And," he flipped open to a paper in one of the files, "one of them was spotted in the downtown area just three days ago."

"Three days ago?" Snort. "You got a picture? A lead? Any actual proof of this?"

"Someone called it in."

The plump man snickered louder as he looked over the statement briefly before leaning back in his chair once more.

"You have to be kidding. You're joking with me, right?"

"I-"

"Did he leave a name? Any number to call him back by? Anything? Or is this all that you were given over the goddamn phone?"

"Not quite-"

"Get out of my office, you're wasting my time and you're wasting your own damn time." The man huffed before closing both files swiftly. "Blade Runners do as they're told. I'm tellin' you now, go hunt for the replicants on the list, not the ghosts of the deceased."

The other man opened his mouth to reply before a plump hand was raised to silence him.

"You want to get your own goddamn name landed on that list so you can get hunted down, too?"

The man narrowed his eyes to slits before shutting his mouth. He clenched his jaw as tight as it would go before turning away.

"That's what I thought." A smug smile. "Better watch your back before someone mistakes you for a Nexus-6 model too, Pines."

"I can assure you, sir, that it will never happen." The white-haired man growled before storming out of the room. "I'm a human."

"That's what they all said."

Pines slammed the door behind him as he stormed past prying eyes. His blood boiled as he growled at those who stared for longer than necessary. Some flinched, others just watched curiously, as he punched the elevator button and seethed.

Those two replicants were alive. They were alive and they were surviving. Everyone else thought they were dead, but he knew better.

He'd show all of them.

The elevator rang out before the doors opened slowly. They scraped as they opened, leaving him with a sense of further irritability before they closed once more, leaving him in the silence of his own thoughts.

The chief's last words haunted him, echoing in his mind as he bit into his tongue. Copper spilled into his mouth, reminding him that he was, in fact, human. He had to be.

Replicants couldn't taste their own blood.  
Replicants couldn't feel emotion.  
Replicants couldn't think autonomously.  
Replicants weren't _human_.

_Replicants weren't really alive._

He rubbed his face with his hand, sighing. Exhaustion burned his eyes and he brought his hands up to rub them harshly. It had been a solid two days since he'd slept.

The weight of apparent failed evidence of pursuit made his body feel even heavier. He had trusted the source on the line - they had described the skinjob exactly, precisely. But, as his sleepless mind finally supplied far too late, it had been in a district thirsty for the blood of fallen LAPD cops. The blood for Blade Runners even more so.

It would be the perfect trap.

He groaned as he ran his hands over his face again. He was sweaty and grimy. He needed a shower.

He needed sleep.


	3. Memory

_"If we gift them with a past, we create a cushion or a pillow for their emotions, and consequently, we can control them better."_

\--

He'd hated the very sight of the glowing city. It was always depressingly dark, with a seemingly never-ending night that only made the illuminated, neon advertisements that much brighter and more obnoxiously beautiful. Even from above, when he'd lived in a place that made the lives below seem like nothing but insects in a world far from his own, he'd never found a way to mentally distance himself.

Somewhere along the line, it had been the beginning of his defection.

It had always started as a regular morning routine - of adjusting a crisp bowtie over his neck, of ensuring the entirety of the living golden space was neat and clean, of seeing his nameless human master off before standing in the middle of the living space in meaningless silence. He'd ensured his place in the household was always submissive in favor of his programming, but something about that lately had started nagging at his consciousness.

In fear of obtaining a dark outcome with voicing these concerns to a human he barely knew, he promised himself that he'd never state that concern explicitly.

He instead watches the rain splat loudly against the clear window, watching people below seem unfazed by the grimy, polluted rain hitting them. He wondered what it was like down there, drudging through filthy streets and shoving past others who must have also questioned their state of living.

It made him wonder when he'd started questioning his own - had it really been because of that other replicant this entire time? What had life been before he'd started experiencing... _this_? He pursed his lips, a quiet, solemn frown threatening to stretch across his mouth as he watched the rain slide easily down the window.

He wonders briefly if other replicants felt this way, too. Did they all question their existence as these slaves to humans? Did they feel these odd, humanly emotions for others like he had for the other replicant? What was the purpose of it, if this was so? Had his creator thought it a cruel, sick joke to watch replicants question their own consciousness against their programming when met with a replicant that...seemed to be...a sort of...programmed soulmate?

Something about the day he'd met the other replicant seems dark, then, when he thinks of it in that way.

He hears the front door ring - echoing through the lifeless room in an eerie loneliness - before he makes his way through, passing pristine, unused furniture and tall, golden walls to stand before the door. Something in him tells him not to, that whatever was behind the door would change everything. He doesn't know why such a thought would ever pass his mind, but he opens it in favor of the unpredictable outcome for once.

When cyan eyes meet his in a silent confirmation of a plan discussed ages ago, he found himself jumping head-first into that dark future he feared so much.

He suddenly jolts awake when an old, raucous car passes him on the street just a ew feet away from where he's hiding. He squints before rubbing his eyes and sitting himself up. He's hidden behind a dumpster under bags of trash, thankful no one had spotted him during the night.

Pushing off the floor and glancing around in a silent grimace as he brushes himself off, he realizes he's only a day's drive from his destination. Unfortunately, it seems he's still being hunted - leave it to the remaining hunters to still have access to the replicant database even after all this time. It was certainly a complication he hadn't planned on having.

Someone passes by the alleyway and he freezes. They look at him for a moment too long before he turns around and starts walking away from them, deeper into the darkness of the abandoned alley. He can hear the footsteps grow in level behind him, just over the pounding in his ears, as he sees the stairwells of grimy apartments reach the sky against the walls.

"Hey! You!"

Swallowing, he stops. He can't make it far without a gun. He turns around, his heart stopping when he realizes the gang patch on the person's arm. Replicant hunter.

"You look like some _thing_ we've been trying to find."

He says nothing in response. Instead, he examines. He can see the gun holstered on the human's lap. The rain has left large, oily puddles around them. The human is about his size; he's a bit tall for a human.

"I'm talking to you." Is said a little more forcefully, rudely. "Wait a minute - you're that Cipher replicant, aren't you?"

The fear that strikes his gut is pushed to the back of his mind. He needs to focus. He looks back up at the man. Grey eyes are hard, angry. Hair is slimy, greasy. Ears are pierced with heavy, black metal and he's not wearing an oxygen mask. He finds that strange.

"Take off your mask." The human growls lowly. His teeth are black or missing and he has various scars around his face.

He, again, doesn't answer back. His own mask feels weirdly heavy at the mention of it. That guilt feeling of what's to come is replaced with the need to survive and thoughts of desperation.

"I said take off your damn mask, skinjob!"

With the avoidance of any answer, the human charges forward and grabs his collar, turning to slam him against a brick wall with a growl. Hands go to grab at his mask, pulling it off and the human smirks in a quiet victory.

"It is you! And here they thought you were dead!"

Panic is forcing his heart into overdrive.

"Where's your other little replicant fuck?"

Anger boils in his gut before he grabs the human's wrists, holding tight before quickly twisting beyond their limitations. The human's face turns in mortified pain when there's a loud snap in both of his wrists. A shouted, echoing cry of pain leaves the man's mouth before he releases him just in time to reach forward and snap his neck to quickly silence him.

He hates that this isn't the first time he's done this.

The human falls to his knees with a loud thunk, then tips to the ground. It takes no time to remove the human's jacket and replace it with his own as he glances around the alley for any signs that he was heard. When no one comes to the belated rescue, he continues putting the jacket on. It's a little snug around the arms, but it'll do. He grabs the gun holster and secures it around his waist. He feels around the pockets, grabbing a pair of car keys and a taped-together wallet. He opens it, grabs the money from the inside and stares at the license for a moment too long. The person in the picture is a younger, cleaner version of the dead body next to him now. The nausea and guilt threaten to claw at him.

He wishes he could change face masks to further the disguise and ease his growing paranoia, but he pushes the thought aside as he quickly makes his way out of the alley to avoid other gang members spotting the body.

He tries not to let the rapidly growing, overwhelming nausea get to him when he thinks about the body laying haphazardly in the alley. It reminds him too much of lifeless, hanging replicants in the streets all those years ago.

No one gives him a second look now. He wishes he didn't have to kill the human to do so, but he can't risk someone revealing his identity. Apparently, word had gotten out already of what he was, but not who. Unsettling, but not yet in emergent levels. As long as LAPD wasn't involved just yet, he'd be fine.

The very moment that Blade Runners even got a whiff of his surviving existence despite the mass murders during the Blackout, he'd be a goner - especially alone. He had to cover his tracks as best he could - even if that meant ending a few human lives in the process.

He finally finds the car just a few blocks away from where the human had spotted him. It's old and looks like it barely runs, but it starts when he ignites it.

It hovers in the air for a moment before rising when he inputs coordinates miles away from his destination. He watches the lights of skyscrapers pass and fall before him as he goes higher and higher into the air, reminded of older days when he'd look down on the people below.

He finds he no longer misses those posh days.

Giant holograms of skimpily dressed women holding drinks and large floating signs of companies flash at him as he drives past, watching the glowing of neon pink and blue illuminate the inside of the dirty car.

He grits his teeth when a LAPD officer passes him in the air. His jaw only relaxes half an hour later when the sight is slowly forgotten.

He reminds himself it'll only be a day longer.

Just one more day.


End file.
